Embracing traditions
Have you ever wondered about your family traditions? What are they and when did they come to be? That’s been me this summer. Every summer we have our “must do” plans, and my girls go along without question because it’s tradition. This year, it became clear that some of our habits have become family traditions.…
Readers write: August 28, 2017 issue
National church needs to continue leading the way to reconciliation The following letter was originally written to Mennonite Church Canada’s Interim Council and is reprinted at the authors’ request. As walkers on the Pilgrimage for Indigenous Rights, we write to share our gratitude for the leadership and vision offered through MC Canada that made this…
Relational trust
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insight” (Proverbs 3:5). “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1). When all three of my boys were beginning to stand on their own and show some interest in taking their…
God’s heartbreak
While training as a family therapist, I learned the term “emotional cut-off.” It was not a dynamic I was personally familiar with; my particular family tends to be on the opposite side of the spectrum. We are often so closely entwined in each other’s lives that a little more breathing space would be desirable, healthy…
Contagious generosity
For many years my wife and I raised our family in an older community with many beautiful boulevard trees but very few young families. Despite our best efforts, our neighbours were aloof and at times confrontational, but we loved our little home and the family we were building there. Last summer, we made the big…
Sieburg women
Who are these five women from Siegburg, Germany, in 1919? We don’t know for certain, but on Jan. 13, soldier Gordon Eby wrote that he and an army buddy “called at the home of the Krohn family—Hubertina, Maria, Lena, Katie and Bettie.” Eby was a long way from his home and Mennonite roots in Kitchener,…
Simple but not easy
Catching up on Witness worker reports, I came across an update from Mary Raber, who teaches at the Odessa Theological Seminary in Ukraine, a country continuing to experience turmoil despite the absence of stories in the mainstream news media. In a class she taught about women in church history, she invited students to tell a…
I’ll melt with you
Our family was fortunate enough to see an iceberg this summer near Twillingate, N.L. It was a surreal experience for me. Everything around me paused for a brief transcendent moment, frozen in time, with the ironic exception of the massive spire of ice in front of me. “I’ll Stop the World and Melt With You”…
Readers write: July 24, 2017 issue
Millennial wants to sing a variety of music in church Re: “What music rankles you?” column, March 13, page 8. I couldn’t agree with this article more. As a millennial teenager, I am mixed in with the generation of people who only like church if it’s like a concert. My opinion is that there should…
Serving up your inner scapegoat
One late Friday afternoon when the office was nearly empty, two clean-cut young men showed up at the Mennonite Church Canada reception desk to inquire about pension benefits for their widowed mother. Assuming they were sons of a pastor, the receptionist sent them my way. As chief administrative officer, helping such people out is part…
